So what does the future really hold for us?

Please believe me – I’m not a doom and gloom kind of guy. And I’m sick of people going on and on about this buggering credit crunch. However, the global economic crisis recently caused a very personal economic crisis that made me realise just how fragile my lifestyle is. And I know I’m not the only one in this position. That’s why I was very interested by this article in the Wall Street Journal.

In it the journalist is describing how a very different industrial sector is suffering this time. It’s not just construction labourers, factory workers and burger-flippers – it’s also lawyers, journalists and advertising creatives. Here’s what the article has to say about it:

We are totally unprepared for this new phenomenon. We have safety nets for the chronically unemployed, for the fast-food workers let go (oddly they may be the only ones keeping their jobs in this recession), and for the manufacturing plants that have been shuttered. The stimulus will create construction jobs galore. But we have nothing for the tens of thousands of displaced advertising creatives and newspaper writers and editors that are among the newly unemployed. They can’t build roads — all they learned how to do was to write ads and draft editorials.

I suppose, when it comes to my own industry, I’d been viewing the current crisis as more of a temporary blip. I was imagining that things would pick up again at some point and a slightly adjusted reality would return. And – to be honest – I’m still pinning my hopes on that. But am I being a short-sighted fool?

Please tell me what you think. Are you feeling the fear in your own agency? Are you seeing things as just peachy? Are you an outsider to the industry and just want to see us leaches on society suffer along with the rest of the corporate scum? Please share it with the group, brothers and sisters.